Pemex recorded a 0.5% year-over-year increase in its natural gas production (excluding natural gas liquids) in 2022, averaging 4,692.8 million cubic feet per day.
Above all, this increase in natural gas production is due to the development of the new offshore fields Koban, Pokche and onshore field projects Quesqui, Tupilco Profundo, Teotleco and Ixachi.
But the result was below the previous three years: 2018 (4,803.0 million cubic feet per day), 2019 (4,816.2 million) and 2020 (4,761.6 million).
Pemex Transformación Industrial processes wet natural gas to produce dry natural gas, ethane, liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) and other natural gas liquids, along with products from the aromatic derivatives chain such as toluene, benzene and xylene.
In 2022, the company’s total sour natural gas processing capacity remained at 4,523.0 million cubic feet per day.
Within that volume, Pemex processed 2,770.2 million cubic feet per day of wet natural gas, of which 2,392 million cubic feet per day were wet sour gas and 378.2 million cubic feet per day were wet sweet gas.
This figure is 5.4% higher than the 2,628.2 million cubic feet per day we processed in 2021, due to greater availability of sour wet gas in the southeast region by Pemex Exploración y Producción, resulting from higher gas production from the Quesqui Field of approximately 500 million cubic feet per day.
Natural gas production
Likewise, in 2022, Pemex produced 160.8 thousand barrels per day of natural gas liquids, a decrease of 6.0% compared to 171.1 thousand barrels per day in 2021.
At the same time, the company produced 2,279.8 million cubic feet per day of dry gas (which is natural gas with a methane content greater than 90.0%), an increase of 9.6% compared to the 2,080.3 million cubic feet per day produced in 2021.
This increase is mainly due to higher gas production at the Cactus, Nuevo Pemex and Arenque gas processing complexes by 159.4 million cubic feet per day, 72.6 million cubic feet per day and 5.5 million cubic feet per day, in that order, as a result of an increased supply of wet sour gas by Pemex Exploración y Producción.
Finally, in 2022, the company produced 446.3 thousand tons of aromatics and derivatives, a decrease of 6.0% compared to 474.6 thousand tons in 2021, due to operational problems at the Catalytic Reforming Cycle (CCR) Plant at the La Cangrejera petrochemical complex, resulting in intermittent operations, maintenance work and problems in the supply of auxiliary services.
The company’s main objective for 2023 in this business line will be to address critical risks in the production stages of the gas processing complexes, including maintenance and rehabilitation of production stages to recover dry gas production and increase the recovery of liquefiable products that allow for increased production of LPG, ethane and natural gasoline.
